Starkiller.”The young man has a knack for the Force and a dark slant to his attitude - making for a less-than-typical lead character for a Star Wars title.” —IGN

“While your character is plenty evil-looking and wields a red lightsaber, company reps were quick to point out that he isn’t a Sith at all. In fact, concept art shows the character wearing a sort of shackle on his wrist that Vader apparently uses to control him…” —GameSpot

We have recently heard from LucasArts that there are no plans for multiplayer on the PS3 or the Xbox 360 versions of The Force Unleashed since it’s going to be availble on the Wii, PSP and DS. (See this post with our friends at EUCantina.net) Well, that might not be entirely true according to my source who is rather close to the TFU action. I can only go into so much detail to protect our Bothan Spy so feel free to take this as a rumor but if it turns out to be true, you heard it hear first! Per BS (gotta love the shorthand initials Microsoft is currently working on a new patch for Xbox Live that is slated to come out sometime early next year.

The patch is none other than The Force Unleashed Multi-Player! Based on what has been seen of this “demo patch”, there are 45 players to choose from in multiple costumes and the EU is highly represented. Characters include Quinlan Vos, Mara Jade, Assaj Ventress, Jedi Leia, A’Sharad Hett, Qui-Gon, Cin Drallig, Darth Desolous, Darth Maul, Count Dooku, Jedi Brute (from the ROTS game), Anakin, Yoda, Mace, Ben Kenobi, Luke, Vader Paplatine, characters from the Legacy series and more. Apparently there will be 3 patches total so who knows what else might be in store.

Vader and his apprentice. Tough times ahead?
In a move that’s sure to please Star Wars fans, players will be able to take control of the most famous Sith Lord of them all–Darth Vader–in the opening level of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. After the typical Star Wars intro (complete with bombastic John Williams theme, text scroll, and slow camera pan from space to reveal a planet), we see Lord Vader land an Imperial Shuttle on the planet Kashyyyk, known to geeks around the globe as the home planet of the Wookiees. Vader is apparently on the trail of a lone Jedi Knight, but the Imperials are also on the ground battling against Wookiee insurgents. Early on in this level, Vader strides purposely through the green vista of Kashyyyk, taking on increasing numbers of Wookiees (and when we say stride, we mean it–the baddest Sith of them all apparently does not run, as the developers thought it would be unbecoming of the evil Skywalker). Vader–as befitting his status as the scariest man in the galaxy–brushes away the Wookiees’ resistance with ease, using his prodigious Force powers to toss the bulky creatures around as if they were tissue paper. At one point, he comes across a large wooden gate, which proves to be a momentary roadblock as he simply blows it apart with one mighty Force push.

The LucasArts rep demoing the game then skipped to the end of this level, showing off the final cinematic of Vader’s solo run. Vader, having trapped the Jedi he was hunting for and keeping him in a Force grip, suddenly finds his lightsaber Force pulled away from his hand. He looks to the side and sees a young boy holding the saber–apparently the son of the Jedi. Sensing the boy’s potential, Vader casually crushes the throat of the Jedi, before killing a group of Imperial soldiers who have seen the boy. Thus–it seems–is Vader’s secret apprentice (the main protagonist of The Force Unleashed) born.

The hands-off demo then skipped to the first time players get to control the secret apprentice, which is a mission in which he has to track down General Kota, another Jedi who managed to survive Order 66 at the end of the Clone Wars. This level takes place in the same space station shown in previous demos of The Force Unleashed, although for the first time, LucasArts showed off the end boss battle between Kota and the apprentice. This takes place in a large, circular room, and the powers being thrown around by both combatants looked mighty impressive. Halfway through the fight, Kota uses his Force powers to completely sever the space station in half, causing the section you’re fighting in to plummet to the planet below. The fight continues, even more hectic than before, with the added complication that the floor is now damagingly hot thanks to the heat generated as the station falls through the planet’s atmosphere. Finishing the fight triggers a God of War-style button-pressing sequence, where players will need to input specific button commands to end Kota with Sith flair. As the LucasArts reps demonstrated, missing the sequence won’t be too punishing, as it will simply reset to the beginning of the event for players to try again.

This level’s closing cinematic also served up a tantalising clue about what may happen in the rest of the story. Before the apprentice deals his final blow, the aged Kota says, rather cryptically, that he can see the young man’s future, and all he can see is himself (that is, Kota). Mysterious indeed.

What was even more intriguing was the final cinematic at the end of the next level demoed, which takes place on the junk planet of Raxis Prime (big spoiler coming, so watch out). After the apprentice completes his task on Raxis (once again, to track down and kill a rogue Jedi), he returns to Vader’s still-in-construction Super Star Destroyer (remember, this game is set between Episodes 3 and 4). Vader tells the apprentice they are ready to finally take on the Emperor himself, but as the apprentice turns away, Vader impales him with his lightsaber, saying that the Emperor’s spies followed him to the Super Star Destroyer. The Emperor himself then shuffles out of the shadows, and orders Vader to finish off his apprentice to prove his loyalty once again.

Cameron Suey, the producer in charge of the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game, revealed the news in an interview with VideoGamer.com at a recent press event in London. The details and timing of the demo are, however, still under wraps.

“I’m not certain about the specifics, but we definitely want to get this game out into people’s hands,” Suey told us. “There are people who are excited about it, who are going to play it right away, whether they play it (the demo) or not. But I think something that is wonderful is that the gameplay itself is so engaging, people who aren’t Star Wars fans or who aren’t even hardcore gamers, once they get their hands on some of the gameplay and how it works, are really going to be won over by it.”

CS: No PC as well, yes.

VideoGamer.com: We’re a multiplatform website and some of our PC-owning readers have complained about this.

CS: And that’s something that every time I read that, we do hear that complaint, it hurts. Our goal was we wanted to get this game to as many people as possible. I definitely wish it had been possible. However the PC being the gaming platform that it is, someone with a $4,000 high-end system would definitely be able to play the Euphoria, the DMM and really technical elements of the game. But someone with a low-end PC would have a watered down experience, they would have to turn all the settings down and it wouldn’t be the same game. On the other hand if we made that game for as many people as possible, because we are trying to make mass market games, something that everybody can enjoy, well then it’s not taking advantage of what those $4,000 systems can do. So one way or the other depending on how you build that lead PC SKU, it’s not going to be for the same amount of people, it’s going to be not as good or only for a select few people.

That said we’re definitely not out of the PC market. It’s just with our choice for this game, with the known quantity for the consoles, and every console is the same with the same processing power, it made sense for us to develop for those consoles.

VideoGamer.com: Do you guys have any message to your PC-owning fans, because you guys have a heritage on PC?

CS: Absolutely. We started on the PC. Unfortunately that goes back to the point of such a variance of the platform. There wasn’t such a variance at that time and it made a lot more sense to develop on PC. The message is that we’re not shutting the door on PC at all. Just for this project it happens to be that we don’t have a PC SKU. I really hope that everyone can experience this game on a platform eventually.

VideoGamer.com: Might there be a PC version in the future?

G4’s reporter went as Luke Skywalker, duking it out in a TIE Fighter bay with Asajj Ventress There’s saber-slashing and Force-choking galore, all arising from a pretty shrewd use of combinations and reverse moves in both controllers. It’s not all lightning bolts and throws, either. Check out that old-school kick to the grill Luke delivers at the end.